


Stranger In a Strange Land

by Nighthaunting



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Cullen Has Issues, Dragon Age Kink Meme, Elf Culture & Customs, Fantastic Racism, Gen, M/M, Mentions of just about everyone important, POV Cullen Rutherford, an inept exploration of privledge in a fantasy setting, au reinterpretation of canon events, cullen doing his job as commander, elf-blooded!alistair, elf-blooded!cullen, elf-blooded!loghain, i know this sounds weird but bear with me, minor and poorly-handled acknowledgement of cullen's ptsd, now with bonus pov interlude chapters, somewhat meta, terrible misuse of that amazing wandering dalish keeper headcanon, the Night Elves are a bigger deal than you'd think, the elf-blooded!cullen au that turned into an alternate history of ferelden's peasants
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2016-06-24
Packaged: 2018-07-14 22:24:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7193297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nighthaunting/pseuds/Nighthaunting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is commonly known, in Ferelden, that poor farmer's sons will sometimes have Elvhen blood running in their veins.</p><p>Cullen Rutherford is a poor farmer's son. </p><p>[For the Dragon Age Kink Meme: "Cullen is a half-elf, how does Solas react?"]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Laying this all out to start with.
> 
> The DA kmeme prompt that ate me: http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/16181.html?thread=62771509
> 
> The Dalish Keeper headcanons I will ride or die for: http://nighthaunting.tumblr.com/post/143655946221/detroit-to-tadfield-a-really-bad-decision
> 
> The elf-blooded Loghain bits are entirely mine. As are any mistakes in canon/timelines/what-have-you.

Growing up Cullen had never particularly been aware of being elf-blooded. It was just the way of things. The same way his father’s father had worked to own his family’s land and not merely tend it for a landlord. His mother’s father was the village blacksmith, who did fine and clever things with iron and shod horses and mended wagons and ploughshares. That Cullen’s father was human and his mother was an elf was of no importance when they courted and wed and his mother moved from the village proper to her new home on his father’s farm.

That Cullen and his brother and sisters looked like both their parents was natural as well. Branson with their father’s green eyes and dark hair and their mother’s nut brown skin and fine sloping nose. Rosalie, milk-pale like their father, but slight and wiry like their mother. Mia, with their mother’s tawny hair and tanned skin and their father’s eyes. And Cullen, milk-pale like his father, but with his mother’s tawny curls and sharp golden eyes; his father’s height but his mother’s whipcord strength; his father’s rough profile but with the slightest point to his ears, not as long and graceful as his mother’s but still delicately pointed, still obviously his mother’s son. 

By the standards of their village Cullen had been a beautiful child. His mother had received compliments on all her children’s looks when they’d trailed along behind her on the way to market. There were dozens of other village children who bore the marks of their parentage, the same as Cullen and his siblings. 

Cullen’s mother had taught them the old stories she’d grown up with: some of Andraste, some of old legends their grandfather claimed where elvhen, but most stories of the village and the land around them. Just as she taught them how to feed the chickens and tend the kitchen garden and milk the goats, and their father taught them to harvest the wheat and pick apples and yoke the oxen. 

Cullen’s mother didn’t speak Elvhen, but his grandfather and grandmother did, and he learned from them; curious after one of  the rare visits from Dalish elves to the village to trade and barter. He can remember his grandfather’s laughter, repeating words to him until his tongue could learn them, gratified to have at least one grandchild who wanted to learn--Cullen’s sisters both having grown bored, and Branson being more interested in the fields than strange old words--his uncle pitching in to help as Cullen’s grandfather retired bit-by-bit from working the forge.

It was Cullen’s desire to learn that drove him to the Chantry. He and his siblings had been taught reading and writing and sums by their mother--who was a clever bookkeeper and farm manager as well as housewife--but Cullen has been a curious child and devoured every book that could be borrowed from around the village. There was no spare money to send a boy off to one of the schools the noble children attended when their tutors deemed suitable, and there would never be enough money to send a boy off to a university, but the Chantry sister at the village chapel was happy to suggest an alternative. Village gossip being what it was there was no one unaware that the youngest Rutherford boy’s heart belonged equally to wooden swords and any book he could get his hands on.

There was nothing wrong with a Chantry education, Cullen’s father said--late at night when he and Cullen’s mother sat together by the hearth and talked--other than that you had to go away and serve the Chantry to get it. When he was a child Cullen hadn’t understood his father’s wariness, nor why his father spoke of leaving Honnleath or the surrounding villages in such grave tones. Cullen’s world had been the wheat and the apple orchards and the lake and the village. That there was anything beyond this to be wary of crossed Cullen’s mind as rarely as a traveller passed through Honnleath--a real traveler, acting strangely around everyone, not just someone’s cousin from the next village.

The idea of being a Templar had won Cullen’s heart though: the thought of an entire library, and learning the sword, and helping mages be safe--just like he’d heard of in stories from an indulgent Dalish Keeper who’d passed through the village and dazzled the children as much as she’d sworn them all to secrecy--was too much for even his father’s wariness nor his mother’s worry to deny. 

Cullen’s grandfather had sat Cullen down--after there could be no more question of his not going--and explained to Cullen that life was different for elves outside of Honnleath and the tiny villages like theirs, and that it was different for elf-blooded children like himself as well. When Cullen has been younger his grandfather has amazed all of his grandchildren with tales of Teryn Loghain and the Night Elves--as well as the whisper, quietly implied, that a great hero like the Teryn had come from a village very much like theirs--and it was shocking to Cullen that in cities elves had to live in alienages and work as servants, even in Ferelden where they’d fought so bravely for the Rebellion. Hearing about Orlais and Tevinter was worse, and Cullen understood for the first time why the Dalish hid themselves away.

Leaving was much like that, sad faces and heavy hearts; people who loved him not wanting to see him hurt while wishing him the best with his dream. Even down to Branson’s sweetheart Rosamund, who had her mother’s delicately pointed ears writ small, just like Cullen, and who took him aside and showed Cullen how to tie up his riotous curls to cleverly hide his ears, the same way she did when she helped her father drive their cart to Redcliffe. 

Going away to the Chantry when he was twelve was the worst yet the most exciting thing that had ever happened to him.

The older knights didn’t seem to care what Cullen was so long as he obeyed the rules, but some of the other initiates--obviously third or fourth heirs being sent as their line’s Chantry tithe--laughed openly as his heavy country accent and obvious elvhen blood. The mocking that trailed Cullen steeled his resolve the same as it made the boy he’d been assigned to room with shift uneasily whenever a voice could be heard--whispering loudly enough to be  _ sure _ to be heard--speculating on how poor and common Cullen’s family must be that he ended up elf-marked instead of wholly human-looking.

Alistair was nice enough, though, and he was always friendly with Cullen. Even, or especially, as he got into mischief that distracted attention from Cullen entirely. It was a kindness Alistair eventually explained, much later, after the initiates had finally gotten to the training ring instead of just lessons on the Chant or clerking or history (which had horrified Cullen again, as he sat silently and wondered where all the elven heroes were until he remembered his grandfather’s words) and Cullen had shot up in a growth spurt and taken to the sword as though he were born to it and none of the other initiates were quite so interested in mocking when they were nursing bruises. Alistair explained, in a whisper, late one night when it was sure no one could hear--perfectly human-looking Alistair, who couldn’t see in the dark like Cullen could, and had round ears and a crooked profile that could only be human--that his father might have been noble but he’d been told his mother was an elf just like Cullen’s.

Cullen had promised not to tell anyone--a promise Alistair hadn’t asked for but was guiltily grateful for, and Cullen had seen that as much as Alistair liked attention he only liked it when it was of his own making--and they remained good friends until Alistair had left years later.

When Cullen was fully knighted and had struck up quiet friendships with the mage librarians--one of whom was elvish and would whisper back and forth with Cullen in elvhen until they were both teary-eyed but smiling--was when coming to the Circle seemed most worthwhile. He was allowed to visit home occasionally, and write to his family often, and could read any book he wanted. The tower library had an abundance of books about magic, but also a great deal of books about battles, and distant places, and, in one half-hidden corner that Cullen was only allowed in after he’d sworn a solemn oath to the head librarian, there were two whole shelves of poetry.

Not very much of it was written in the King’s Tongue, and even if Cullen could read written Elvhen there was none of it there, so Cullen went back to the head librarian and asked as nicely as he could if they would kindly suggest a way to read it. Which had ended with Cullen approaching one of the Chantry sisters who’d been sent from Orlais and begging for lessons, which she had given, grudgingly pleased to see a ‘dog lord’ attempting to ‘better himself’ and been a good enough teacher that Cullen could swallow his handful of pride and ignore her casually insulting comments about ‘rabbits’ to learn to speak and read Orlesian, and to at least decipher written Antivan and Tevene. As long as he spoke to the sister in Orlesian whenever she wished as payment for her time and efforts, and Cullen couldn’t begrudge her wanting to hear the language of her home, no matter how unpleasant she was, especially after she’d helped him. 

Surana is possibly the nicest person in the tower to Cullen aside from the librarians. Gregoir is generally dismissive, and his fellow initiates who have become his fellow Knights never mock or tease anymore--the novelty worn away into not acceptance but resignation--but Cullen has no camaraderie with them. If there is anything the Mages think of him beyond the fact that he is a Templar they never share it, and Cullen doesn’t expect them to. He is old enough now to have been to the cities and seen the alienages, how elves (and Cullen knows he can’t truly think of them as his people, not when his people live in their villages and are safe, but Cullen knows he has elvhen blood in his veins and these elves are treated poorly only because they are elves) were kept away from humans ‘for everyone’s safety’, and can recognize that the Circle is an alienage for Mages, and recognize that he has no rights to any of their thoughts.

Surana is kind, and Cullen blushes and stutters when he speaks to her except when she tells him she speaks no Elvhen at all but has always longed for the language and the culture of a People she is one of but not  _ one of _ , her whole life spent in the Circle tower. Cullen can understand in the same way he understands when he’s in Redcliffe or Denerim and hears himself called ‘shem’ under the passing breath of elves who won’t look twice at Templar armour. In the same way he understands his grandfather’s disappointment, now, that only one of his grandchildren had stayed and learned his language out of childish curiosity. Cullen shares as many words as he can with Surana in the tiny snatches of time that a Mage and a Templar may speak to each other alone. When she is accused of blood magic and volunteers herself to the Grey Wardens Cullen cannot blame her.

Even though he has everything he thought he wanted as a child--the older Knights tell him he is nearly the best with the sword they’ve seen; the head librarian has finally relented and allows him to use the heavy Tevene dictionary in its glass case, and he is slowly unraveling a book of terribly old love poetry--Cullen can still look around the tower and see that he has stepped as little into the real world as the cloistered Mages have. As he had as a child, his people--his true people, elf and human alike--keeping to their villages and away from a world that is cruel to elves and mages and poor farmer’s sons. 

Cullen hears, and is more hurt and dismayed than he can admit to anyone without explaining why--because Teryn Loghain had been a great hero, and he’d come from a village just like Cullen’s, and Cullen doesn’t know how significant that was to his grandfather, who’d fought with the Night Elves once, but he can  _ guess _ and he’d heard himself from his own fellow Knight’s lips what nobles think of elf-blooded farmer’s sons--when news reaches the tower that King Cailan is weeks dead and Teryn Loghain might be to blame.

But then Cullen hears nothing, because Uldred has gone mad and he is trapped.  Under the demons’ torment time loses all meaning, and for once he is absolutely sure he receives no difference in treatment because of his blood. When Surana finds him--bloody and a breath away from breaking--Cullen thinks she is a demon at first. But she wears Warden blue and sets him free and Cullen can find no words to say to her even as he weeps in thanks yet shrinks away in fear.

Fear that this is a trick after all. Fear of magic. Fear of demons. Fear of himself.

He had never desired Surana, he had known he had no right to ask and no right to take if she offered, but the demons had sometimes worn her face just the same and spun Cullen’s one fragile friendship into pain and torment. Cullen is ashamed  that he will never be able to face her again, and ashamed that she leaves before he can find the words to tell her. That she saved his life and he offered only silence seems an unspeakable cruelty

Months later, when Cullen is well again, everyone gives him looks of such pity that he almost wishes they would tease him again. Gregoir sends him away instead, and it is travelling to the port that will take him to Kirkwall that Cullen hears it has been claimed before the Landsmeet that Teryn Loghain is elf-blooded. That a conspiracy of nobles sold out the alienages to Tevinter slavers and framed him for the crime. That Teryn Loghain has been stripped of his titles and become a Grey Warden.

Cullen hears the news that King Maric’s lost son Alistair has graciously agreed to wed Queen Anora--beloved by the common people still, they whisper, in spite of her father’s blood--and will be crowned king soon, and remembers Alistair’s whispered confession when they were initiates together. He wonders who it was to stand before the Landsmeet and dig Teryn Loghain’s elvhen mother from her grave and use her blood to condemn her son. He wonders if Alistair was there when it happened. 

Being in Kirkwall is miserable. It is nothing like the peace of the Circle in Ferelden, and so far distant from the love and safety of home that Cullen can’t bring himself to think of Honnleath without feeling as though he sullies the memory.

From the moment he stepped down the gangplank and onto Kirkwall’s filthy stone, Cullen has kept his hair--still a mass of riotous curls, so thankfully easy to hide behind--tied up the way Rosamund, now Branson’s wife, had taught him so long ago to cover the points of his ears.

Cullen’s fellow initiates--his fellow Knights--had been dismissive, familiar in their distain, but for all they scoffed they were Ferelden, and knew that elvhen blood was found often enough in the veins of poor farmer’s sons. It is not so in Kirkwall. They would be cruel and never stop, Cullen knew, and so he hid as best as he was able. It didn’t work entirely. Meredith knew, and Cullen squirmed and dragged his feet doing her bidding as she held it over his head. Listened to her speak of Mages as enemies, of the constant threat of blood magic, delighting in bringing up Uldred as the ultimate proof.

The only thing Cullen had nightmares of were the demons, and when he thought of mages all he could picture was the horror on Surana’s face as he sobbed and choked and failed to speak to her. 

The only thing worse than the stench and the cruelty of the Gallows was that he was expected to be the face of it. Despite dragging his feet and trying to be as slow and methodical as possible, Cullen still was appointed Knight-Captain. His relative freedom was more than paid for by his shame at the greater knowledge of the things that happened in Kirkwall, and between the nightmares and the guilt Cullen drowns in the minutiae of requisition forms and patrol rosters and training. Surfacing to see the city spiralling ever-downwards--his inattention making it seem all the worse--only to check, surreptitiously, on the state of the alienage and one tiny clinic in Darktown that Cullen downplays in every report that crosses his desk.

This wears on for years, until one winter he hears a whisper--and he does hear a few whispers, because it is known and joked about in the seedier taverns of Kirkwall, by the Champion himself, that Knight-Captain Cullen couldn’t recognize a mage if they cast in front of him, but it is also known that Knight-Captain Cullen will leave elves to themselves and is a decent enough  _ shem _ \--that there is an elvhen visitor to the alienage. Cullen himself usually avoids the alienage for many reasons--homesickness, the wise eyes of older elves who know elf-marked children, the fear that Templar armour represents to anyone not human and magicless--but he hears the whispers and remembers the lone Dalish Keepers who would pass through Honnleath from time to time, always treated with the utmost respect and hosted as a member of everyone’s own family for as long as they chose to stay. Willing to tell the village children amazing stories about elvhen heros, and old gods and goddesses, and who would sometimes pass back through the village with an elvhen child in tow--bound for the Brecilian Forest--and would be offered passage on someone’s cart to the next village over; and the next village on from that, moving laterally across Ferelden as just a few more poor country elves. 

He remembers being sworn to secrecy as a child, and he’s kept those vows for all of his years as a Templar, holding them more dearly with each year that passed as he saw more and more clearly the world. There is very little he can do now, except to assign his most lenient and easily-distracted squads to the patrol that passes near the alienage until he hears word that the visitor has left Kirkwall, and to pray to Andraste--with a word aside here and there to those gods and goddesses he heard of as a child, in hopes that they’d look after their own when he can’t, even though he’s spent his life thinking of them as myths. 

Cullen never finds out what went on, other than that his patrols reported nothing unusual and came back smelling just enough of ale that he knows their reports were probably fabricated in a tavern rather than on the streets of Kirkwall where they were meant to be, but the thought that in wretched Kirkwall there were still people trying--elves and men, just like at home--is enough that Cullen rouses himself from grief and listlessness to face his nightmares as best he can. He endures Hawke’s scorn--as well-deserved as he knows it to be--to hold together what he can in the wake of Meredith’s madness and the Chantry’s destruction. 

In the wake, when Varric has been elected Viscount and he himself acts provisionally as Knight-Commander--Cullen never wears the circlet and hood, but the Knights call him by rank and he leads them as best as he is able--Cullen tries, quietly, to direct some of Varric’s attention to the plights of the alienage. The considering look Varric gives him is uncomfortable, especially now that he’s been hiding--never denying, because there are things Cullen could live with but that isn’t one of them--for so long, but the subject is allowed to drop. The greatest improvement Cullen can give to Kirkwall is reining in the Templars. 

When the Right Hand of the Divine arrives in Kirkwall for Hawke, Hawke is miles and miles away. Cullen doesn’t know how Varric warned him, but he knows that Varric did. The same as Cullen knows he is a second choice, and that this is a second chance he should not rightly be allowed--in some of his nightmares Cullen serves in Kirkwall forever, eternally screaming himself hoarse at the last dregs of Meredith’s thuggish regime that never departs--but Cullen would do nearly anything to leave Kirkwall. 

(Nearly anything, but not anything, not betraying the secrets from home that he hoards to himself, more precious than gold or lyrium or his ruined dreams, that he will never speak for fear that harm will fall on the last safe place that exists in the world.) 

Cullen makes Cassandra Pentaghast swear to him that if she feels he’s faltering she will replace him, and accepts her offer to join the Inquisition. 

He packs and leaves Kirkwall, his riotous curls a half-bound mess that cover his ears. If he averts his eyes from torches at night it’s only because they’re sensitive, and not at all to hide the way they catch and shine in the light like wolves’ eyes peering from the underbrush. 


	2. Two

Haven is better than Cullen expected. The Inquisition is small, in the nascent stages of formation, and the work Cullen is expected to do is intimidating. But Cullen is happy to be back across the Waking Sea, and the Frostbacks are as breathtaking as they were when he was a child, and Haven is close enough to Honnleath that he can go home for the first time in nearly ten years.

Cullen had been ashamed to write often while he was in Kirkwall--never wanting to associate the stench of that place with home, never wanting any of the ugliness he breathed every day to creep into his letters--but he’d been kept updated by letters from Mia, and occasionally Branson and Rosalie.

It feels like walking through fire to ride down the so-familiar roads again, seeing the old sign-posts and pathmarks unchanged. Orchards that had been newly-planted when he left home have grown mature in his absence. Cullen wears no armour, just his own heavy boots and plain clothes. The only sign that he is truly a traveler and not a neighbor is the sword sheathed at his hip, the swordbelt around his waist a strange comfort.

When he sees his father’s house again, Cullen feels nearly sick with relief. That everything is okay, that everyone is safe, that nothing has truly changed. The feeling that follows swiftly on the heels of his relief though is unspeakable grief. If nothing has changed here, then he is the one who has changed; for the worse, Cullen fears, the comfort of his sword turning cold as he remembers how he used to wander these roads freely as a child, with no worries and fewer cares.

Cullen knows he’s tangled himself in knots by the time he reaches the house. The sight of his father standing in the doorway driving him to tears as soon as he dismounts his horse. Being caught up first in his father’s arms and then in his mother’s--both of them greyed but still steady and strong--before being surrounded by his brother and sisters is too much. There is a place in Cullen--secret and quiet and dire--that half-expected he would never be able to come home again. That he would stop short at the invisible boundary separating Honnleath from the rest of the world and never be able to cross it.

That he is loved and that his family are so happy to see him again, is enough to soothe away the ache of the guilt and lyrium withdrawal for the time he stays. Cullen tries to see everyone in the village before he inevitably must return to Haven. From his grandfather--fully retired now, and leaving his uncle to work the village forge--to the most casual of acquaintances he had as a child. At the end of the week Cassandra had given him, Cullen saddles his horse--saddlebags nearly twice as heavy under the weight of the gifts he’s had pressed upon him by friends and neighbors and family. 

His people, so glad to see that he’d come home, and so overwhelming in their love that Cullen weeps again when he rides away; having sworn to write more faithfully, and to visit when he can now that he’s no longer across the sea.

Haven is snowy, unsurprisingly, and small; for a place the Divine has chosen to hold the Conclave it seems too much of both. The date set for the Conclave is still months away, and Cullen spends most of his time collaborating with the other members of the ‘inner circle’ as Cassandra calls it. 

Cullen, so far, has been asked to advise on the Templar Order, and also to begin organizing military strength for the projected Inquisition. Mostly this seems to mean either working on organizing what troops they do have so far, sitting in intense meetings with Sister Leliana and being grilled with questions, or sitting in less-intense meetings with both Cassandra, Leliana, and their newly-arrived diplomat, Ambassador Josephine Montilyet. 

These full sessions of the ‘inner circle’ function less like a military debriefing and more like teatime; gathered in the parlour that has become both Josephine’s office and Josephine’s salon. With fine, strong tea and a small assortment of delicate cakes served on Josephine’s china. Cullen tries his best to mind his manners, and allows himself one of the rich little cakes each meeting, no matter how pointedly the plate is nudged towards him by Cassandra. If he is being rude by refusing he could never tell from Josephine’s cheer, but just in case Cullen takes an offering of the heavy apple cake his mother had sent him--along with more letters, the sweetest thing about being in Haven is that he is once again close enough to home for the occasional care package of treasured woolen socks and some treat from either his mother or sisters’ kitchens--and Josephine is so delighted that she has her assistant acquire a serving plate and knife from somewhere, and all four of them spend their meeting balancing their teacups in one hand and thick slices of cake in the other. 

It is difficult not to feel like everything is too good to be true in that moment, and Cullen knows--deep in his bones--when the conversation turns to the intended impact of the Inquisition and the necessity of finding the right person to be Inquisitor, that he has to tell the truth.

The truth is difficult. Cullen has never lied about his blood, not once in his life. He has simply embraced the fact that most people--especially in Kirkwall, where it was most important to hide--don’t look beyond the Templar armour and unruly curls. But he is no longer a Templar, and while he is meant--supposedly--to command the forces of the Divine’s own Inquisition, he can never stop being a poor farmer’s son: elf-blooded and elf-marked and quietly proud of his family. 

Cullen can remember, those years ago on the roads to the coast, when he heard of Teryn Loghain’s fall. And he’s noted that no matter how the nobles might grumble that the scion of House Theirin, young Prince Duncan, has Elvhen blood from Queen Anora--and they can’t ignore it, when gossip from Denerim says the lad is gently elf-marked and nearly the spitting image of his disgraced grandfather--they never say a word against King Alistair’s bloodline. 

Simply put, Cullen knows well enough that the Inquisition will be a political force no matter how many soldiers are sworn to it, and he can’t see how it can accomplish its grand purpose--dreamed of by Leliana, and Cassandra, and Divine Justinia herself--with an elf-blooded farmer’s son leading its army. 

Cullen will miss the teatime meetings. He will miss getting to build all the workings and mechanisms of a smoothly-running and well-supplied force from the ground up. He will miss sparring with Cassandra. He will miss Josephine’s unselfconscious friendliness. He will miss Leliana’s cool demeanor and perceptive mind. However, he steels himself, and brings a sachet of butter cookies Mia sent--as a peace offering, preemptively--and sits down to tell them that he can’t be the Inquisition’s Commander anymore.

“And why not?” Cassandra is the first to ask, scowling thunderously at him, the effect not at all lost by the tiny porcelain cup and saucer balanced in one of her hands, “And if you say it’s because aren’t capable or some nonsense I don’t want to hear it.”

“Yes, Cullen, why?” Leliana joined in, “from what I’ve seen you’re doing a fine job so far.”

Cullen glances at Josephine, but she is mercifully reserving judgement until he speaks his piece. 

“The Inquisition is more than soldiers,” Cullen says, having rehearsed mentally what he meant to say, yet still willing himself not to stutter, “it’s about politics too. Nobody is going to be able to look at it separately from the Divine herself--”

“Exactly,” Leliana interrupts, “and that you’re aware of this only adds to your suitability for the role, not distracts.”

“It is because I am aware of this that I know I’m unsuitable,” Cullen retorts, clenching his fists against his thighs. 

When he sees Josephine lean forward to finally speak, Cullen realizes that the three of them are going to argue him into an impasse before he can explain further--it makes him genuinely sad that he can’t stay as much as it makes him feel absurdly valued--and so he tugs off the band holding his curls away from his face and tucks his hair behind his ears and says quickly, “I don’t see how it will be any help to the Inquisition when it is inevitably discovered that your Commander is an elf-blooded commoner.”

Cullen watches Josephine’s mouth go perfectly round, sees Cassandra’s brow crease from the corner of his eye, and notes that Leliana looks almost pleased with herself--although he can’t bring himself to be surprised if she knew somehow--before he can’t look any of them in the face anymore and busies himself pulling the second tie from his hair. By the time he’s fixed the band meant to keep his curls out of his face, and used the second tie to gather most of his curls into a knot on top of his head--the gather and fall of his curls perfectly covering his ears and keeping the mess of his hair nicely out of the way--Cullen’s self-consciousness has worn to the point he can glance around the room again.

“So…” he begins, “you see why I can’t…”

Cullen is interrupted by Cassandra slamming her fist down on the table; rattling the porcelain and focusing all four of their attentions.

“You aren’t going anywhere, Rutherford,” Cassandra says with a vehemence that startles him. 

Josephine smiles then, entirely recovered from her shock, “Cullen, this is hardly as dire as you think it is. There can be certain amounts of leniency granted to purely military men, regardless of birth, and your service to the Chantry can only be seen as a credit to you.”

“I knew,” Leliana says, “but then I’ve met and traveled with elf-marked Fereldens before. As political as the Inquisition will become, your position as Commander and advisor are relatively secure,” she paused to sip her tea, “You’ve obviously already discovered ways not to draw attention to it if you don’t want it known,” her eyes flicked to his curls for a moment, “just continue on as usual, and we can all agree that this conversation will never leave this room.”

“Ah,” was all Cullen could find to say, deflating slightly and retrieving his own teacup from the table, “I mean, I thought--”

“I can guess what you’ve thought, Cullen,” Leliana says, more gently than he’s ever heard her speak, “and I don’t mean to waste a fine Commander for the sake of political foibles that may never come to light.”

The encouraging smile he received from Josephine and Cassandra’s firm nod were enough to convince Cullen that they meant it.

With it known--if only to Josephine, Leliana, and Cassandra--that he was as he was, Cullen applied himself to his duties with a lighter heart and a greater determination. He had realized how greatly he valued the friendship of each woman, but now divested of the strain of secrecy and not having suffered in their regard at all--if anything Cassandra was vaguely approving of his gesture--Cullen devoted the fullness of his loyalty to each of them. 

This was not Kirkwall where he organized Knights who would only do harm. The hope the Inquisition offered towards making amends for the suffering Cullen had caused--directly and through ignorance--was enough to ease his worries even as he confessed to Cassandra that he’d stopped taking lyrium and asked for her oversight as the teeth of the withdrawals seemed to gnaw at his bones.

As the Conclave approached, both Leliana and Cassandra were called away to attend to last-minute details more often, leaving Cullen and Josephine to conduct meetings by themselves. Always starting with business and supply ledgers and accounting, but ending up having a friendly tea.

Divine Justinia’s arrival in Haven was greeted with as much fanfare as the town could muster. Cullen himself had polished his armour to a mirror-sheen and was still startled when Leliana had introduced him personally to the Most Holy. 

Haven was so crowded with visiting dignitaries and Mage and Templar representatives that it takes Cullen by surprise when he makes a rare visit to the tavern that’s been raised and hears Varric’s voice ring out in greeting. Meeting Varric again outside of Kirkwall is strange, and Cullen thinks it might be strange for Varric as well--there’s a subtle difference to the way Varric acts, the way he speaks to Cullen. A friendliness that somehow grew up between them in Cullen’s absence that Cullen doesn’t particularly trust but also doesn’t particularly want to question. Cullen retched his way through Varric’s book about Hawke, and saw how he was written--nothing more harsh than he deserved, but more bitterly devastating to see laid out with such narrative clarity--and Varric’s cheery insistence on calling him ‘Curly’ and inviting Cullen to drink with him seems misplaced in light of the man who lives in Varric’s book. He accepts though, and listens to Varric tell stories about how he left Kirkwall, asking for details about the few people and things Cullen had been concerned about leaving himself.

With all that has happened, and the time and distance and fresh hope that has come to Cullen since leaving Kirkwall, it is both terribly familiar and yet terribly jarring when the Conclave explodes. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As scathing as Varric's novel is regarding Cullen's character, I've always wondered how they seem to end up being regarded as friends in Inquisition, with no explaining as to why.


	3. Three

After two decades of being a Templar, Cullen falls back on his training more often than he would like. In the case of the disaster the Conclave is swiftly becoming, though, it is a mercy more than anything else. Rallying troops and forming squads to begin combating the demons pouring from the sky is as much as he can do while Cassandra and Leliana attend to the only survivor from the temple. 

Stopping the demons from reaching Haven is merely one concern. Cullen knows that he only has so many troops to deploy, and that clashing with the demons will soon begin to diminish that number. Varric is around--Cullen has seen him leading a strange Elvhen man through the camps surrounding Haven--but there is no time to worry about him. The most time Cullen spends away from what have become the front lines of the effort to contain the demons is to find Josephine and coordinate evacuation efforts with her. 

Otherwise, all of Cullen’s attention is dedicated to the running mental tally of active troops: current patrols; the number of injured and dead; and the rotation of the men and women so they can have time to rest and recover their strength. He has some reinforcements and support from volunteers in Haven and among the camps: villagers and clergy who run messages and tend to the wounded and offer food to his soldiers; Templars and Mages both who were in the camps, stepping forward as healers or supplements to Cullen’s forces. He can’t afford to turn any of them away, but he tries his best to make sure the Mages are shuffled into patrols with only Inquisition soldiers, and likewise the Templars are organized and sent in opposite directions from them. There is far too much at stake for the conflict between the two groups to be allowed to interfere, and the few Templars whose questions lead in that direction are swiftly informed of such by Cullen in as loud and carrying a voice as he possibly can. 

In the long run Cullen knows he can hardly manage the balancing act forever, but it is the truth. And Cullen has been in charge of fighting men and women for long enough to know that if he doesn’t disabuse them of their notions and put them hard to work at the start, that he will never be able to corral them for longer than it takes them to leave his sight. If there is any hope as well, of the Mages trusting in the orders of a former Templar--for all the Templar volunteers defer to him as Knight-Commander, his name still well-known in the Order after Kirkwall; both infamously for turning against Meredith, and mercifully for what he managed to repair--then Cullen must make it well known that his priority is the safety of everyone in Haven and the camps, not the prejudices and ideals that made the Conclave necessary in the first place.

To the extent that any military operation could be said to run smoothly, it works. Cullen has been drilling and organizing the Inquisition soldiers for months, and he’s worked to settle the tone of their morale into something as far from the narrow zealotry of the Templar Order as he can. He’s seen the mistake in that thinking from both sides, and the Inquisition can ill-afford it. A force for the good of Thedas has little room for prejudice and fear, and the patchwork nature of his recruits--gathered from different nations and different forces--helps and hinders in interesting ways. All soldiers, Cullen has found, have their superstitions and dislikes; that he has been in charge of soldiers for long enough to learn how to align these in the least destructive manner possible is one of the few points of pride Cullen carries as a commander. That he learned his skills in the dread and oppression of Kirkwall, where more often than not he sought ways to undermine the focus of his own soldiery, only made it bittersweet. The Mages are naturally inclined to avoid the Templars and stick to the more accepting troops Cullen assigns, while the Templars are discouraged from any attempt to seek the Mages by the threat of Cullen’s watchful eye and greater threat of the demons. 

But their time is running out. Cullen’s mental tally begins to tip over as the reports of injuries and casualties come to him. They’ve been holding out steadily, but will soon begin to be overwhelmed, no matter how cleverly Cullen has chosen his terrain and chokepoints--not trying to push the demons back, but merely holding a picket line between the Breach and the village--unless something changes soon. 

When Cullen receives a runner from Leliana saying that she and Cassandra have a found possible way to seal the Breach, his relief is palpable. Stopping the flow of demons will finally give them a chance to contain their threat. Cullen knows that not all of the demons are holding to his picket, and while he’s taken steps to avoid being flanked, and sent scouts to assess what directions they’re moving, he can’t deal with the threat that is posed to the nearer villages and settlements--although he has never been more thankful for Haven’s seclusion than he is at this moment--that the spreading demons will inevitably be attracted to. 

Leliana’s arrival is less the relief than he thought it would be, though, as is the news that Cassandra has taken a small group--including Varric and an Elf who may be able to close the Breach--through the mountains. Cullen begins giving orders for the assault--regardless of his own feelings he is Commander here, and there are troops to be arranged if this plan is to have any chance of success--as Leliana gathers as many soldiers as he can spare as before moving to support Cassandra. 

The fighting is brutal. Terrible, as battle always is, but worse for the shriek and moan of the demons. Cullen knows these sounds; hears them in his nightmares. He has barely enough lyrium left to him to cast a single Silence, but his ability to sense magic and demons has been maddeningly undimmed by the strain of his withdrawal. His senses prick at him now, the thorny feeling of  _ demons, unchecked _ whispering across his nerves in needling stings of discomfort and nausea. He is glad for the chill in the air, despite the heavy fur he wears to ward it off, because it grounds him into the moment. The sense-presence of demons, the scent of blood, the sounds of dying men; all of these live so viscerally in his memory of Kinloch Hold that it is a struggle to maintain every level of awareness that commanding a battle requires of him. His awareness of his place on the field and the threats surrounding him, as well as awareness of his captains, the direction the battle is flowing, and the strength of his forces. 

Despite all of Kirkwall’s problems, Cullen was rarely required to face even one summoned demon at a time while he was stationed there. Uldred had choked the upper levels of the tower with them, and that is what Cullen remembers if he allows his focus to drift, sometimes even needing to forcibly draw his attention back to the present. The difference that saves him, now, is that during Uldred’s madness the tower was somehow made to feel cloyingly warm, while the high peaks of the Frostbacks are bitterly cold. 

The cry of triumph that rises from the soldiers when the Breach closes is nearly physical. They rout the remaining demons once they’re no longer being reinforced, and the cheering that breaks out immediately after the battle is over is so joyously relieved that Cullen doesn’t even bother with reprimands. He trusts his lieutenants to keep their platoons in line, and gathers his captains to begin the work of arranging for the wounded to be moved and the dead tended to. 

Once the field is cleared, and runners have taken messages to Cassandra and Leliana and Josephine--all blessedly safe, and attending to their own parts of recovering from this disaster--Cullen sets about the business of the aftermath. Seeing the injured soldiers to healers and commending the dead to the Maker is only the first step, if not the most vital for morale. With adjutants in tow, Cullen passes among the working healers before stopping to speak with the Chantry sisters doing the solemn work. The final counts of survivors and casualties are still being tallied, but Cullen has a fair idea of what they’ll be. Their losses aren’t as terrible as they could have been, and are even less terrible than his immediate overview of the battlefield made them seem. They have still lost, though, both Inquisition troops as well as volunteer Templars and Mages, and Cullen will have to set aside time to organize letters of condolence to send to their families. 

The next order of business is assigning duty rosters to move debris, patrol around Haven, dismantle the more haphazard barricades, and survey damage to the camps. The fewer billets he’ll need to arrange the less headaches Cullen will have to suffer through, and he is profoundly glad when reports return that the soldiers’ camp suffered no more than a few chunks of rubble and singed tent canvases. After all of this--which will keep his troops and staff busy for the next few days, at least--Cullen finally finds time for a hot meal of his own, sends a runner to Quartermaster Threnn with a note to give an extra half-ration of grog to each shift of soldiers going to mess, as well as a copies of the patrol routes and guard schedules for Leliana and Cassandra, before falling face-first into what he is almost entirely sure is the same bed he woke up in the morning before last.

If complete exhaustion was something Cullen once hoped would stop his dreams, he has grown accustomed to disappointment. He wakes before the dawn, as usual, with a jittery feeling skating down his spine and only a vague recollection of what he dreamed that caused his discomfort. Sitting up and pulling his legs to his chest under the blankets, Cullen rests his forehead against his knees as he waits, patiently, for himself to stop shaking. The demons had jogged vivid sense memory of Kinloch, and while he didn’t dream his own suffering, his dreams of the way they’d moved and whispered and _ felt _ were just as unnerving. He breathes in the scent of morning and the fabric of the bedspread as he waits, and it grounds him back, settles him enough that he can reach for the waterskin hanging off the bedpost and drink deeply, before dragging himself from under the covers and to the washbasin. 

For all that he has privilege enough as Commander to breakfast privately, Cullen slips into the mess-line and accepts the tin cup of strong-brewed tea that’s pressed on him as soon as he’s recognized. He greets the faces he knows, and makes a greater effort to learn the ones he doesn’t. An adjutant finds him just as he’s finished eating, and offers reports from the duty shifts and guard patrols that ran during the night while Cullen was unavailable. There aren’t many, more because Cullen only managed a handful of hours of sleep before giving up and returning to his command--something which he’s being given a vaguely disapproving look for by Rylen as the man crosses the camp towards him--than because of a lack of news. As Rylen arrives Cullen waves the adjutant away, and begins wandering towards the Haven Chantry, which currently houses their command table, while checking over details in the reports. 

Rylen is a gruff presence at his side, although he doesn’t attempt to lecture Cullen--or rather he doesn’t need to when Cullen knows full-well the words he’d use; and had used, in Kirkwall when they’d met and become friends--and the two of them set about planning a more involved shoring-up of Haven’s defences now that they have a better idea of where the worst of the damage is. Cullen turns their strategizing into concrete orders, and Rylen forgoes any salute as he leaves in favor of giving Cullen a dirty look that implies he isn’t taking care of himself, to which Cullen responds by smiling despite himself and sighing in a put-upon manner. Rylen scowls at him, and Cullen knows that his second-in-command is going to go behind his back soon in an effort to force a rest on him. The fact of it is touching, and if he were anyone but himself he’d be grateful that Rylen is trying to give him more time after Cullen spent the past two days using willpower to keep himself on his feet while excusing his captains to rest. He isn’t anyone else, though, and Cullen has been using the hard work and necessity of tuning out his own shaking hands and cold sweat to carry himself past the memories and nightmares the Breach and its demons have stirred up. 

The sun has risen by the time his meeting with Rylen is over, and Cullen begins organizing the paperwork and business that he was forced to abandon in the face of the disaster. There are still requisition ledgers to sort and supply chains to organize. He will need to meet with Quartermaster Threnn and his captains to reassess their readiness and take an inventory of what was used or destroyed during the fighting. The list of names of the dead has found its way to his desk, and Cullen sends an adjutant to find a scribe so that letters of condolence can be drafted--if this were Kirkwall Cullen would have done it himself, but in Kirkwall Cullen wallowed in his guilt so he could forget himself; no more can he live in grief and ignore the world--and sent to their families. A message from Leliana interrupts his work and Cullen realizes that it is not only early afternoon, but that he has nearly forgotten it is the time that the inner circle usually meets. 

They are all of them wearing signs of fatigue, and for a long while they’re all absorbed in their tea--Cassandra taking it upon herself to simply assign each of them an equal portion of Josephine’s little cakes, even Cullen, who tries to protest and is glared into silence when Cassandra deposits three of them on his saucer--but when the meeting actually begins there is a great deal to discuss. Ellana of clan Lavellan--the only survivor of the Conclave--was still unconscious, although Varric had found a hedgemage who could tend to the mark that had been left on her hand by whatever power had caused the Breach. That the mark seemed like the best chance they had of sealing the Breach for good was apparently lost on Chancellor Roderick, though, as he called for Lavellan to be sent to Val Royeaux while still unconscious to await trial for the nebulous crime of having survived while the Divine did not. 

The Divine’s death hung heavy over the Inquisition--not even fully-formed yet--and while Cassandra and Leliana had the Divine’s writ, the entirety of the inner circle was aware that they had no allies to speak of, nor any resources or forces beyond what they had allocated from the Chantry before the Conclave. Josephine had been working to remedy that during their months of preparation for the Conclave, just as Cullen had written to every Templar he could think of that he even suspected had harboured objections to the Order or an inclination to leave it, but in both cases they had only been introducing the idea of the Inquisition, with the thought that the Conclave would give them a scope of the necessary size of their undertaking. Now the Conclave had ended not only in the Divine’s death but the deaths of a great many leaders of the involved factions, as well as the revelation of some strange and new enemy. 

Cullen had been dismayed but not unsurprised to find that the reason Varric had been in Haven was because Cassandra had been attempting to pry Hawke’s whereabouts from him--Varric had mentioned no such thing to Cullen, of course, but Cullen expected very little from Varric and their strange détente--especially since Surana was also unable to be found. Their two prospective Inquisitors both having disappeared was inauspicious, especially now that they needed to swiftly push the Inquisition into existence before they were unable to act at all. Privately, Cullen was sure that Hawke was minding current events from the shadows, but Surana being missing worried him. Messages sent to Amaranthine received replies that the Warden Commander was attending to urgent business that concerned the Grey, and would of course be told of their desire to contact her as soon as she returned. The flatness and uniformity of the replies had Leliana convinced that there was more wrong than simply urgent business, but she couldn’t say what or why, merely reaffirming what Cullen knew himself--that Surana would deal with whatever threat had arisen herself, in her own ways, and had left to do so--as well as offering the observation that there would be no more use in pressuring Amaranthine for an answer. Whoever was in charge there would be Surana’s third-in-command, as Surana herself was gone, and likely had taken Warden Loghain with her. And the strangeness of thinking that  _ Loghain _ was Surana’s subordinate now--Cullen never being able to hear the name without thinking for a moment of his grandfather’s stories or of the intense pride that lived in the hearts of every country elf and elf-blooded child, who spoke of the Night Elves in awe even as the rest of Ferelden forgot--was offset by Cullen’s irrational relief. 

Beyond these issues, there was very little for any of them to do until Lavellan awoke. Cassandra and Leliana were both the ones who would have to deal with Chancellor Roderick, while Cullen and Josephine both agreed to begin more aggressively pursuing readiness on both the political and military fronts. Leliana suggested attempting to reach out to the Mages and Templars for support, and it was tentatively agreed upon that missives would be sent to gauge the responses of both factions. 

The response to Lavellan was another issue that they could do nothing about but wait for her to awaken. Cullen had listened to Lavellan be referred to as both the ‘Herald of Andraste’ and by all manner of the usual cruel names directed at elves, and both troubled him enough to speak at the meeting. Lavellan would find very little in the way of justice if Roderick had his way and she was taken to Val Royeaux; which Josephine, Leliana, and Cassandra all knew. There was something dark running in Cullen’s thoughts that he couldn’t entirely untangle. It was the same thread of discomfort that had woven around Cullen when he’d had the option to cut his hair when he became an Initiate at the Circle. It was the same thread of discomfort that moved his father--as far back as he could remember--to always be sure he was the one to take their cart to Redcliffe or see the Bann when there was trouble. It was the same thread of discomfort that made Rosamund learn to tie up her hair to hide her ears, and teach Cullen to do the same. It was the same thread of discomfort that ran through every poor village in Ferelden--where elf and human blood mixed--as they watched the years pass after the Rebellion and saw the memory of the Night Elves be purposefully lost as alienages reopened in the cities. There was nothing about these thoughts that could be properly explained, not without the context of years and years of history rooted down through the blood, but Cullen tried for the spirit of what he’d understood his whole life. 

Simply saying that Lavellan would face greater difficulties than any of them could imagine seemed weak, but Cullen watched Josephine and Leliana’s eyes and Cassandra’s tensed jaw as they understood, and had hope that even if his words were dull the eloquence of his discomfort had reached them. 

Leliana said that they would need to have a meeting with Varric’s hedgemage, who seemed to be the person who understood the most about the magical nature of the Breach, and volunteered herself to arrange it for later that afternoon. This seemed to signal the end of the meeting, because Leliana left after it was agreed to, Cassandra following. 

There was more than enough work to occupy Cullen when he returned to the alcove in the Chantry he’d staked out as his office, until the echoes of Cassandra and Varric’s voices drew his attention. They were arguing in the room at the back Chantry, while a peculiar elf--who Cullen recognized as the hedgemage Varric had found--stood outside the open door and watched them bemusedly. 

The elf turned when Cullen approached, and Cullen stopped a respectful distance away--both as a stranger who’d never been introduced as well as a known Templar, albeit former, to someone who’d lived their life as an apostate mage--when the elf greeted him. 

“Commander Cullen.”

“Yes,” Cullen admitted, accustomed to being recognized while still managing to be made uncomfortable by it, “We haven’t met, but Cassandra told me how you helped rescue my scouts and stabilize the Breach. Thank you.” 

“Of course,” the elf says, smiling slightly at Cullen’s thanks, “I am Solas.” 

For a moment Cullen only hears the Elvhen word-- _ pride _ \--and not a name, but his wits catch up to him and he says, “It’s good to meet you, Solas.” 

Cullen means it, sincerely; his heart always lifts when he meets another of his people, and Cassandra had told all of the inner circle Solas’ story of his small village and wanderings. But there is nothing he can say that will communicate this to Solas, and more than that, Cullen knows that just because Solas is an elf from a small village--which might be much like his own, but might not be--does not mean Cullen can simply speak of it, or ask questions. There are greater secrets Cullen keeps in his hiding than merely the nature of his own blood: a web of vulnerable threads that links from poor country elves to the hidden dalish to the tired city elves, tying them together even as they seemed divided. 

Solas cocks his head--looking at Cullen somewhat askance--and Cullen hears the echo of his own voice saying  _ solas _ a dozen times in repetition, his grandfather patiently correcting his pronunciation until the word rolled from his tongue instead of dropping like a stone. Cullen smiles tightly--feigning ignorance and a leaden human tongue--and Solas seems to dismiss him in favor of Leliana as she sweeps into the Chantry. 

Cassandra and Varric are interrupted from their argument by her arrival, and Cullen steps up to his place at the long planning table as Cassandra moves to Leliana’s side. Solas and Varric are in front of them, Leliana’s positioning presenting the three members of the inner circle as a united front for their meeting. Solas seems unperturbed, and Cullen wonders how far he had to wander to live as an apostate and yet show so little regard for the Chantry’s strength--the thought is an ugly one, Cullen knows, the sort of wrong-thinking the Templar Order encouraged twined with true curiosity and a quiet joy that it had been accomplished. 

Cullen regrets thinking the way he does sometimes. His knowledge of the Order makes it easy for him to predict, but sets tracks in his mind that his best efforts have only half unmade. He rests uneasy in the knowledge that there is half of his world that he can only live on the fringes of, that he is an ‘elf-blooded human’ but never a ‘human-blooded elf’ despite being half of each, and that either way leaves him lesser. There is nothing to do but set his curiosity about Solas from his mind, and accept that he can neither afford to ask his questions nor have answers for them given without the knowledge that those answers are given to a Templar, no matter how Cullen tries to distance himself from the Order.

There is more urgent business to attend to than his own feelings anyways, and Cullen listens carefully as Leliana begins questioning Solas on the nature of the Breach as well as what Solas thinks will enable them to close it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like Cullen doing Commander-y things. Say what you will about his character, but he's certainly competent. 
> 
> I'm trying very hard to build the idea that there's a distinct culture to the poor country elves-and-humans that's sort of the bridge between the dalish and the city elves. 
> 
> Another thing, as a result of how this is growing, but: Cullen reacting to Solas before Solas reacts to Cullen. 
> 
> Inopportunist, I replied to your comment, but again would like to say that I am in no way expecting anything other than the satisfaction of filling your lovely prompt.


	4. Interlude - A Brave New World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Varric is a curious person by nature, a nosy one by inclination, and an empathetic one in secret. 
> 
> The Templars of Kirkwall are the most horrid gossips in the city, and Knight-Captain Cullen has such an interesting past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got a little hung-up on the question of why Varric has apparently decided he likes Cullen in Inquisition after apparently dragging Cullen in Tale of the Champion, so, have the version of why for this au.

Varric likes to think that he knows people. Not just connection-wise; really knowing people. Being able to pick out the things that make them tick. The motivations; the hidden character; the depths most people hid away. He’s proud to say he’s not often surprised by people--Bartrand not counting, not really, because Varric had always known he was a greedy bastard.

Knight-Captain Cullen Rutherford, however, does count.

Varric’s first read of the man had been his usual take on Templars: staid, officious, self-righteous, and none-too-bright. And this had stood, for a long time it had stood. Kirkwall was a special slice of hell, and it made sense that Kirkwall’s Templars would be a special slice of crazy; Meredith most of all, which caused it all to fit in a certain--deranged--way. 

The first thing that tipped Varric off that Knight-Captain Cullen wasn’t all he seemed--although at the time Varric had taken in Hawke’s stride and joked as much as anyone else that Cullen only had half his wits--was the fact that the man had quite the staff-shaped blind spot. Hawke’s staff Varric could understand, the thing was massive--more like a polearm than a staff, really--but Anders or Merrill? The question of whether or not Cullen really was blind was raised half-jokingly again when Anders admitted to having met Cullen before, at the Ferelden Circle. Varric though, Varric could see some logic to it, at last. Ignore the healer who kept Darktown and the alienage from sinking in on themselves, and give Hawke and Hawke’s friends a pass. 

The title of Champion had to be good for something, right?

Varric was content to dismiss it, for all Hawke thought Cullen was a hilarious goldmine of mindless Templar doctrine and a half-baked mini-Meredith to boot. 

There was the occasional story sometimes, and Varric had found through experience that the best way to know what the Templars were doing was to cultivate them as unwitting informants while they were on leave--and Templars on leave ended up at either the Rose or one of the shadier taverns near the Gallows. Varric was always a ready ear for a good tale, and willing to buy a round or two to help ease the telling of it. The thing about drunk people, Varric had found, was that they loved answering questions. And a question about Knight-Captain Cullen, here-and-there, if only to satisfy his own curiosity, was never considered amiss.

Which is why, out of all Hawke’s companions--aside from perhaps Anders, who never talked about the Ferelden Circle much, and would outright refuse to answer questions about Cullen--Varric ended up being the one to piece together the dirt on Rutherford. 

Varric was well-known, but there was a familiarity that had to be built with any drinking buddy. A story exchanged for a story. You didn’t pour your life’s tale out at the very beginning or no one would want to drink with you. The fact that Varric was making half his stories up didn’t mean anything much beyond the fact that he could be quite the enduring drinking buddy. 

He got small stuff at first. Knight-Captain Cullen was apparently liked well enough, considered either an unsalvageable bleeding heart or a stone cold bastard--depending, it seemed, on how much punishment detail he was handing out, and to whom--and was, to Varric’s surprise, almost universally the subject of the most awed and backwards form of pity Varric had ever seen. There was a story there, and Varric mined it like gold. 

The first Templar to break down under Varric’s painfully casual questioning was a raw recruit--she’d been at the Gallows a week--who had the expression of a woman who’d sat up all night before her execution. Varric made friendly chit-chat with the veterans who’d brought her out for a drink, told one of his better stories to get the mood up, and then, while the girl was still nursing her first drink and her fellow Templars had all moved on to their second and thirds, asked if the story hadn’t been to her liking, and finally hit paydirt. 

The Initiates’ wing was overcrowded, the recruit had been quartered instead in one of the empty rooms in the officers’ wing.  _ Wasn’t that better than being crowded in with the others? _ Varric asked.

_ No, _ was the resounding answer,  _ it wasn’t _ . She’d been put too far down the hall. There weren’t just empty rooms because Meredith went through officers like a Nug through lettuce. Knight-Captain Cullen had the most wretched night terrors, and more often than not woke screaming fit to raise the dead. 

Varric was surprised by this, and was more surprised when the veteran Templars only advised the recruit that it had always been that way, even mentioning ‘that poor sod Samson’ to each other--a name which Varric mentally filed away--and telling her she’d be moved soon enough. Asking what a guy like Curly--and the nickname usually amused Templars into telling Varric things--had nightmares about made the veterans clam up, and Varric suddenly knew he was looking down the sights of a bigger story than he’d thought. Something dark and dirty that had to do with Cullen Rutherford, that even his fellow Templars--horrible, bloody gossips, all of them, and some of the meanest bastards Varric had met in Kirkwall, which was saying something--didn’t want to touch. 

He bought another round to smooth away the shifting discomfort that had fallen upon his oblivious informants at the question, and made everything good again with another story--fake--while privately running through the list of which old, bloody-minded Templar he knew would part most easily with the story.

Varric’s curiosity was something he dealt with on his own time, and Hawke asked for his help with a few things, and soon enough months had gone by before he set up in one of the seedier taverns near the Gallows. He’d come here to drink and mine stories out of the Templars often enough to have a table he thought of as his, and Varric was settled at it now. Hawke’s latest escapades were relatively benign, so there was no need to concern himself with Templars wanting to avoid him, and soon enough Varric had a table of the most horrid old gossips the Kirkwall Templars had to offer. 

It’s easy enough to pour ale into them until they’re willing to tell him anything, and easy enough for Varric to turn the conversation to Rutherford--calling him Curly, which always amuses Templars into telling him things, and repeating one of the more risque jokes Hawke has made about the Knight-Captain when the Templars are liquored up enough to not care about defending the man’s honor, if they care at all--until his Templar informants are willing to tell him everything they know as long as he smiles and buys the next round. And tell him they do: Cullen Rutherford’s past has been made an open secret in the Gallows by Meredith herself, and into Varric’s keeping they unfold a tale of shock and horror and cruelty--Varric is canny enough a storyteller to see where the embellishment begins and the truth ends, but the truth is awful enough by itself--and more, the speculation on what Meredith holds over her Knight-Captain’s head to keep him so exactingly in line. The night devolves into filthy gossip, and if Varric’s smile is tight and brittle his guests are too drunk to notice. 

Varric Tethras is not a man of any particular honor. He tries to do what’s right, and keeps his eyes open, and his crossbow loaded; which is the most, he feels, anyone in their sane mind can do for themselves in this world. But he’s also a storyteller, and he  _ knows _ people, and there is a certain empathy that comes of that, which Varric can’t ignore. 

He doesn’t tell a single soul what he’s learned about Cullen Rutherford. 

He just watches. He attends to the details. He pays attention. 

When all's said and done in Kirkwall, and Varric finds himself Viscount of a city he isn’t sure he’d rather never see again, the greatest and most overwhelming emotion Knight-Captain Cullen--now Knight-Commander, at least provisionally--displays is profound relief. Varric watches the man lose ten years of age in a single afternoon, sitting in a meeting to discuss--which was a polite way of saying Varric meant to explain exactly what the Templars could expect, now--the Order’s plans for aiding in the rebuilding of Kirkwall, and finding Cullen not merely grudgingly polite but actually helpful. With designs to bring the Templars under control even more sharply than Varric had initially imagined; plans that couldn’t have simply sprung from thin air, but rather bore the marks of something someone had pondered, like pieces being moved around a chessboard. 

_ The Tale of the Champion _ has already been written, and sent to Varric’s publishers. Even if he felt like changing it--which he doesn’t--there’s no way to do so now.

The Cullen Rutherford who sits before Varric now is a tired, wrung-out man. Even if he was not the source of the Gallows’ cruelty, he still stood by while it happened; Varric can understand, if Meredith truly had leverage to ensure Cullen’s obedience--although he’s never been able to discover what that leverage might have been--but he can’t forgive so easily, not yet. 

There’s time, now, for Varric to find out who Cullen is--without having to rely on hearsay or drunken tales told in shady taverns--and he’ll judge the man he sees for himself. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Templars are sort of jerks. My take on Cullen's roommate situation is that he and Samson shared until Cullen was promoted to Knight-Captain (which wasn't right away) and then Cullen got moved to the empty end of the Officers' wing. 
> 
> In regards to the meeting when Varric is Viscount, it's something that I imagine had to have happened given the new Viscount (be it Varric or someone else) is the actual power in the city since Meredith is gone. It just never gets shown I guess?
> 
> And Anders. Anders knows Cullen's elf-blooded, just like Cullen knows Anders is a Mage. The unspoken agreement--settled upon sight-unseen--is that neither of them mentions anything about the other and they go their own ways. This works to a certain point.


	5. Four

For all that time seemed to drag while waiting for Lavellan to awaken, after she did, everything moved more quickly than even Leliana anticipated. 

Lavellan was--simply put--a firebrand: fierce and opinionated and angry. Angered by what had happened at the Conclave as much as she was angered by Chancellor Roderick and the response to her survival. She scoffed openly at being called the  _ Herald of Andraste _ and was unhappy, albeit more privately, with being obligated to stay with the Inquisition in hopes of sealing the Breach for good. As ungrudging as Lavellan was about the mark being their only chance at closing the Breach, she still hated being unable to return home to her clan.

Cullen understood, and liked and respected her immensely. He found himself in a difficult position still, though, feeling that it was necessary to his role as an advisor to offer options that contrasted with the rest of the inner circle--the options that their military strength provided them--just so the ideas could all be weighed equally. He was especially unsurprised when Lavellan decided they would side with the Mages, and wasn’t especially opposed to it, but he still felt obligated to offer the suggestion of asking the Templars for help.

If Cullen had his way he would never have to be confronted with the harsh realities of what the Order had become, but there was a morbid curiosity. A desire to shine the Inquisition’s light into the shadows shrouding the Order. To see how deeply the rot had taken, perhaps, or to uncover some secret reason for the Order’s decline. Cullen had been blinded by the darkness of Kirkwall to such an extent that by the time he’d extricated himself the uniform blackness that cloaked the Order’s motives had seemed natural, and the time it had taken Cullen to work himself free of the overwhelming pall the Order had cast over him the Conclave had seemed the only hope to start repairing the damage.

Cullen, at heart, has always disliked uncertainty. Which is perhaps why--when the Breach is truly closed and all of Haven is celebrating--Cullen asks to speak with Lavellan privately. 

Lavellan had warmed to the Inquisition since their rocky beginning, and Cullen has listened to Leliana’s speculation at enough inner circle meetings to guess that soon enough, an invitation to become Inquisitor will be extended to Ellana Lavellan. Cullen hates uncertainty, and he can’t be certain that the one person who will lead them--the person who he will be commanding  _ armies _ for--will never find out when the truth is only the fall of his hair away. He’s nervous, rightly; there are some Dalish clans, he’s heard--outside of Ferelden--that refuse to acknowledge half-elves. Clan Lavellan makes their home in the Free Marches, and for all Cullen admires Ellana, he doesn’t know her. 

It is difficult to speak when he has been silent for so long. Josephine, Leliana, and Cassandra’s support has been priceless to Cullen; had galvanized and strengthened and renewed him. But he cannot give the Inquisition only half of himself and his experience. Leaving the lyrium has been painful and difficult, but Cullen has felt freed, each day he resists the philtre--no matter how his head aches as the lyrium slowly leaches from his bones--and if he’d given the Order half of himself he must give the Inquisition more. The breadth of his life and experiences and not merely his view from the inside of a tower. 

Cullen reminds himself of this when Lavellan appears for their meeting. They’re in the nook he’s claimed as his office in the Haven Chantry. Most everyone is outside celebrating, and the few who are straggling or on guard duty are no where around the Chantry. Telling Lavellan is easy, in the end. She guesses when he lights a candle, telling him how his eyes catch the light just like hers do. He still tucks his hair behind his ears and shows her the delicate points--which honestly delights her--and they sit for a while in the quiet of the Chantry. They speak Elvhen, and Cullen tells stories of his childhood he hasn’t shared with anyone since Alistair. Lavellan tells him of her clan--blessedly safe in the Free Marches, despite every trouble that befell Kirkwall--and Cullen hasn’t felt as warm or connected to his people--not just his human blood but his elvhen blood as well--in decades. 

Ellana swears to him, the candlelight bright in her eyes, that he will have a place by her side as long as he wishes. She calls him  _ hahren _ , playfully, and Cullen blushes so hard he thinks his face will bruise, sputtering that he’s not that old and that it isn’t appropriate while Lavellan fairly cackles. He realizes she was making fun of him, and can’t help laughing as well; more deeply and happily than he has in years. 

He tells Lavellan how much he admires her and her bravery, and they tiptoe around the truth--the fact that an elf or a human can gain some measure of acceptance, but that half-elves are expected to disappear into one of the other--in favor of Lavellan laughing and telling him not to be so serious. Cullen can’t help it though, and he entertains the notion of not having to hide while in this little circle of candlelight and Ellana Lavellan’s warm laugh. She doesn’t blame him for his choices, acknowledging the silent question that hangs between them with the truth--and Cullen thinks she must be a magnificent First when free among her clan--and says she won’t treat him any differently. It is so comforting, and so much more than Cullen hoped, and she can read that in his face too, because her mouth tilts mournfully when he tries to fit words around what it means to him; her easy acceptance. 

There is no way to oath yourself--to swear your undying support to someone--without seeming melodramatic, but Cullen does it anyways. He can’t promise she will always agree with his suggestions as advisor, and he honestly doesn’t expect her to--admires that she seeks other ways and means, spinning solutions out of the hope and faith of the people around her--but he will offer her options as best he is able as her Commander. (And Cullen determinedly doesn’t think about the novelty, in the world as it is, of an army being sworn to follow the whims of an elf. That he would rally his troops and march to the ends of the world at her word. That he wants Ellana Lavellan to have a sense of the  _ power _ that rests in her hands; not just from the mark, but because if there is anyone in the world who has been held powerless and afraid it is elves, and Cullen wants her to know that it doesn’t have to be that way anymore.)

(Cullen determinedly doesn’t think of himself as well; held powerless and afraid as Uldred’s demons finally broke down the barricade the Templars trapped in the tower has put up. As Uldred looked around the charnel of Templars who had succumbed, who had gone mad, who had given up their faith and fallen on their own swords. And Cullen. Huddled in the corner, trying to close his ears and eyes and nose at the same time, but still able to hear the voice. “ _ Well, well, if it isn’t our Ser Cullen, with his lovely elvhen blood and lovely elvhen face-- _ ”) 

Lavellan understands, somehow, in some way Cullen can never speak of and doesn’t fully comprehend, but it both cuts him to the quick and eases his heart. 

She cannot ignore the plight of the Mages--of which she is one, Cullen is gently reminded--nor the suffering the Order has brought, not merely to Mages but to elves as well. And Cullen knows this, and admits, cautiously, his own hurts from dealing with the Order. Ten years of teasing followed by ten years of hiding--his suggestions fueled less by any desire to take up the Sword of Mercy again and more by his sick desire to understand how the cold-but-not-cruel Order of his youth had become such a thing. 

The guilty desire to know is something Ellana understands as well. Their meeting ends in tears. Cullen hasn’t wept since he left Kirkwall--one late night on the ship he’d taken across the Waking Sea, realizing he’d be in Ferelden again, and weeping in relief to be away from that place. 

His tears seem wrongly spent, after Haven is destroyed, and Cullen can’t summon up any emotion but anger. They save the people of Haven, but while Cullen searched for Lavellan through the snow, he burns with it. 

Cullen had hoped, someday, to see Samson again. To find him and make things right--he’d tried to in Kirkwall, but whatever friendship there’d been between them had been too freshly damaged for Cullen to do anything--to apologize for bending to Meredith when she refused his pleas and arguments against banishing Samson from the Order. It is too late now, it seems, and Cullen thinks of every minute quirk he remembers Samson had--and wonders how useful they’ll really be; how much Samson has changed.

Chancellor Roderick’s last gesture--an apology, perhaps--would have warmed Cullen once. Would have renewed his faith that people can change, can be moved from their dark places, can have their eyes unshrouded by the Maker. But now he is tired. There is so much to do, now, and so many refugees. Lavellan’s near-death, after such a triumph, and the face of their enemies revealed--and revealed to have been a friend, once--is too much for Cullen’s hope to withstand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a hard chapter to write, as it's mostly Cullen's feelings and a transition. I'm also being lazy about remembering what part happens when :/
> 
> A bit short bc near the end I had to start slapping myself on the wrist and saying 'no, bad, this isn't supposed to be an au where solas seduces cullen into being elvhen supremacists together'


End file.
